UK ambassador ‘lobbied’ US senators to obscure Britain’s complicity in CIA rendition program

Newly-released data reveals Britain’s US ambassador engaged in at least 21 separate meetings with members of the US Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) prior to its publication of a report on CIA rendtion. (AFP Photo / Osman Orsal) / AFP

Records published under Britain’s Freedom of Information (FOI) Act have compounded concerns that the UK government lobbied US officials to keep Britain’s role in CIA torture and rendition out of a soon-to-be published Senate report.

Newly-released data reveals Britain’s ambassador to the US, Peter
Westmacott, engaged in at least 21 separate meetings with members
of the US Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) prior
to its publication of this report, heightening existing
allegations that the British government may be seeking to
sanitize the document.

Westmacott met with key Democrats and Republicans on the SSCI
throughout the body’s investigation of the CIA program, records
obtained by the UK legal charity Reprieve reveal.

Of particular note are two separate meetings with Senator
Feinstein in the immediate aftermath of the US government’s
decision to publish what is expected to be a damning report on
CIA torture, interrogation and rendition.

Multiple leaks concerning the Senate’s findings have thus far
indicated the document will unveil new information relating to
Britain’s collaborative role in the program, particularly with
respect to the US’ use of British foreign territory Diego Garcia
to transfer detainees via rendition flights.

In early April, it emerged that the Senate’s investigation had
uncovered CIA detention of core suspects on the Indian Ocean
Island of Diego Garcia – a territory that has long been leased by
the UK as a military base to the US. The Senate’s findings, in
their leaked form, contradicted a serious of UK government
denials that Britain presided over the CIA’s use of Diego Garcia
for its extraordinary rendition program.

Following these revelations, several human rights groups have
publicly said Diego Garcia played a crucial role in CIA
extraordinary rendition – a program of moving terrorist suspects
to covert prisons around the world in the absence of legislative
oversight.

In light of leaked data from the Senate’s investigation and
escalating criticism from NGOs, the UK government has faced
mounting pressure to reveal the full extent of Britain’s role in
the contentious CIA program – specifically with respect to its
alleged complicity in the running of a covert black site prison
at Diego Garcia.

But it appears the government’s response to calls for
transparency has culminated in increased efforts to lobby for
censorship of the Senate’s findings.

Despite Westmacott’s
nearly two dozen official meetings with SSCI officials prior to
the release of the US’ CIA rendition report, Britain’s Foreign
Commonwealth Office (FCO) also admitted these records only
pertain to official meetings.

The FCO emphasizes the list of meetings published is not
“exhaustive” and does not indicate “brush-by meetings”
or those incidences when Westmacott may have “attended the
same events” as these SSCI members.

Former Foreign Secretary William Hague previously conceded the
British government had discussed the issue of “UK material” in
the SSCI’s torture report with US officials. In an official
letter to Reprieve, Hague revealed the UK government had sought
“assurance” that the Senate Committee would follow
protocol in insuring material in which the UK is implicated be
cleared by UK officials prior to its release.

Following recent revelations pertaining to Westmacott’s regular
meetings with SCCI members, Reprieve’s executive director, Clare
Algar, warned the logs uncovered further evidence of
“desperate attempts” carried out by the British
government to “censor the Senate’s report on CIA
torture.”

The UK government was “up to its neck in the CIA’s program of
rendition and torture – making it highly likely that the Senate’s
report will contain information that is deeply embarrassing for
them,” Algar emphasized.

Algar subsequently called for a dramatic policy shift in
Westminster with respect to Britain’s role in CIA rendition,
urging ministers to endorse the publication of the torture report
in the most transparent form possible.

Confirmation that a British-owned territory was explicitly
implicated in severe violations of human rights common to
extraordinary rendition could expose the government to legal
action. In July, the
European court of human rights ruled Polish government officials
had actively facilitated the CIA’s European secret prison
program.

Gareth Peirce, a lawyer for several Guantanamo detainees, said
the British government must come clean on the government’s
alleged involvement in the rendition program.

“All relevant treaties, UN mandates and an ever-increasing
body of authoritative court rulings demand that investigations
into suspected state involvement in the mechanisms of torture,
including rendition, be speedy, transparent and
far-reaching," she said